Dunlap: Going 2-2 Without Big Ben A Victory For Steelers
Do what you want.
It's your fandom.
I'm not going to tell you how to feel, what to feel or when to feel it.
But here's how I feel in the aftermath of the Steelers' 23-13 loss against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday: I'm OK with all of this.
Yep, I'm OK with Landry Jones falling back to Earth and looking more like Landry Jones than some jumbled concoction of Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath and Terry Bradshaw rolled into one right arm.
I'm OK with the Steelers falling to 4-3 on the season and the Chiefs snapping a five-game winning streak in a game that was, largely, pretty difficult to watch.
I'm OK with the Steelers locked firmly in a tussle --- as they might be right to the bitter end --- just to secure a Wild Card spot in the AFC.
Know why?
Here's the bottom line: I'm OK, always have been, with the Steelers going 2-2 with Ben Roethlisberger on the shelf with that injury he sustained against the St. Louis Rams back on Sept. 27.
Really, when you think about it, how could you not be?
With the pervasive thought that Roethlisberger will return to his rightful position as the starting quarterback of the Steelers for this coming Sunday's game at home against the division-leading Bengals, doesn't it feel like this football club held the fort down to a great degree while he was out? Sure does to me; but again, I'm not going to tell you how to feel.
When Roethlisberger crumbled to that St. Louis singed turf back in late-September, in my estimation it felt like the Steelers season could have been lost right there, as if it could have been done, finished, kaput.
But through the Mike Vick project that didn't work, the use of the Wildcat offense, a last second go-for-broke touchdown attempt, a kicking problem that was a huge problem and then got rectified, the emergence and then submergence of Landry Jones, Martavis Bryant making his presence felt, myriad injuries, Antonio Brown griping about not getting the rock and a defense that might be a tiny bit better than expected coming into the season, here we all are after the (assumed) four-game absence of the real quarterback … with a Steelers win against the Chargers and Cardinals, bookended by losses against the Ravens and Chiefs. From this view, I don't see how that can be looked at as some sort of negative, when the most important person to the on-field success of the franchise --- that big guy wearing No. 7 --- hasn't played in just about a month.
So go ahead and deal with the Chiefs loss however you'd like. You can yell and scream, punch a hole in the drywall, knock a big dent into that fifth of Jack or just be downright morose and miserable.
As far as I'm concerned, I'll keep some perspective in all of this: The Steelers went 2-2 without Ben Roethlisberger. That feels like a victory in the big picture.
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